Look Black in Anger

The 2016 Academy Awards descended into chaos earlier this week, when Leonardo DiCaprio stepped up to accept the ‘Best Actor’ Oscar wearing black face. “Look, it was an honest attempt to address the whole ‘lack of diversity’ issue which has dogged this year’s awards,” Academy member Herb Herfnstuffer – who featured in such classic movies as Cornhole Carnival and Rear Entry – explained to trade paper Hollywood Uncovered. “With the whole furore over there being no non-white nominees for the main awards, we thought what better way could there be for Leo to show his solidarity with the ‘brothers’ than to black up? We figured that it would also redress the balance by, sort of, letting a black guy win an award on the night!” DiCaprio’s blacked up appearance – described by commentators as ‘insensitive’ and ‘an ill judged stunt’ – drew a furious reaction from many members of the audience, with several attempting to storm the stage. A spokesperson for the Titanic star later denied that he had known anything about the stunt, believing that he had had only regular make up applied to his face prior to the ceremony. “Leo’s just not a vain guy, so he didn’t check in the mirror,” Buck Priss told Hollywood Uncovered. “He was as shocked as everyone else when he realised what had happened – he just couldn’t understand why people were booing him and shouting abuse.”

Such protestations of innocence, however, cut little ice in some quarters. “It’s just typical of modern media’s liberal elites – they’re supposed concern for causes like racial equality is just another performance,” opined Rick Dickley of Social Justice Review. “All they are interested in is looking good by backing the trendy ‘right on’ issues – the trouble is that that their ‘concern’ for minorities is just patronising. I don’t doubt that they really thought that having a top star ‘black up’ was showing solidarity, they’re so out of touch with reality.” Dickley, a leading critic of the growing influence of wealthy elites on liberal causes, has also cast doubt on the innocence of any of the players in the current Oscars black face controversy. “I really don’t know why that celebrity audience was acting so outraged when DiCaprio turned up on stage blacked up – he’d been sitting with them for a couple of hours like that without anyone commenting! Damn it, when the cameras cut to him when the winner was announced, I swear that he was wearing a straw boater and waving his hands. Al Jolson-style,” he says. “It’s probably just as well that most real black celebrities had boycotted the ceremony in protest at the lack of diversity, otherwise there might have been some real outrage and he might have gotten lynched!”

Not that Dickley has much sympathy for the protesting black stars. “They’re as much part of the over-privileged wealthy Hollywood elite as the rest,” he claims. “Someone like, say, millionaire movie star Will Smith has about as much in common with the average black person as Michael Bay does with directorial talent. The only time these guys worry about racism is when they can use it as an excuse for not winning an award, rather than admitting that they’ve simply made lousy movies. Believe me, wealth and privilege transcends race.” But it wasn’t just DiCaprio’s black face antics which marred last Sunday’s Oscar ceremony. Still reeling from this outrageous display, the audience were further shocked to see losing Best Actress nominee claiming that her failure to win the category was due to the fact that she was actually black. The seventy year old British actress, renowned for her appearances in various European art house pictures, told an astounded interviewer that she has been forced to spend the past fifty-odd years in white face in order to secure leading roles, so pervasive was racism in the film industry. “That must have been one Hell of a make up job,” mused Ted Nook, film critic of the Tooting Advertiser. “I mean, I’ve seen her get her knockers out in The Night Porter at least a dozen times and they are definitely white and I’ve had that bit where she gets it all off in Zardoz on freeze frame for hours on end – there’s no way that’s an all over make up job!”

Further shocks were to come with Best Supporting Actor Mark Rylance revealing that ‘he’ was actually a she, forced to pose as a man in order get decent roles. Arguing that his Oscar win vindicated his claims of rampant sexism in Hollywood, Rylance pointed out that he had pursued a parallel acting career in a female persona, yet had only won awards as a man. Indeed, ‘he’ pointed out that ‘his’ alter ego, Marcella Rydim, despite appearing in over forty films, including Hockey Girls Harem, Bareback Cowgirls and Tropical Tannings, had not only never received an Oscar or BAFTA nomination for her work, but was still completely unknown to the general film going public. “I’m sure that if she’d been prepared to sleep with producers and directors, it would be Marcella standing here now,” Rylance claimed in his acceptance speech. “But she chose to maintain her integrity and save her body for purely professional on screen sexual liaisons.”

In a final Oscar night twist, there were reports that, at an after awards party, Kate Winslet had sunned fellow party goers by whipping out ‘her’ penis and claiming that ‘she’ was actually a man, forced to pose as female because of the ‘political correctness gone mad’ of feminism. “She reckoned that the pendulum had swung so far in favour of women in the film industry that the only way to get roles playing properly rounded characters with emotional depth was to tie back your whang and don a pair of falsies,” claimed gossip columnist Perry Savoy who was allegedly witnessed the whole incident. “Frankly, it’s beyond me how he ever kept something like that schlong hidden in his panties for all those years – it was magnificent.” Again, critic Ted Nook has cast doubt on the veracity of the claims. “I’ve seen that bit in Titanic when she gets them out for Leonardo DiCaprio to paint,” he says. “Believe me, those weren’t falsies. They were definitely real.” The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, meanwhile, has steadfastly denied that any of the incidents ever took place, pointing out that none of them were seen in TV coverage of the Awards. “Obviously, nobody watching on TV saw them,” says Rick Dickley. “That’s what they have that thirty second delay for, so that they can bleep out any swearing and edit out any incidents of black face, cross gender protests and general crazy shit.”